


everything i missed (when i didn't have you)

by Hewt



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Believing in Love Again, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Falling In Love, Fluff, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of Past Relationship(s) - Freeform, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Prompt Fill, Soft Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Wholesome Joe and Nicky, Wooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hewt/pseuds/Hewt
Summary: Prompt fill for this prompt at The Old Guard Kink Meme:Joe falls in love easily and it's brought him a lot more disappointment than happiness. The people he falls for might be nice in the beginning, but once the honeymoon period is over it seems like they always find something to criticize. So after a string of relationships that always seem to end with his partners being critical of things that make Joe who he is, Joe comes into his 30s convinced he'll never settle down happily.Then he meets Nicky, who seems to be genuinely nice and always says the nicest things about Joe's art. Joe has gotten his heart broken too many times to be willing to give this a chance, but over the course of many months and Nicky proving him wrong time and time again, Joe slowly starts to think his love life might not be a lost cause after all.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 138
Kudos: 531





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, apparently I don't have a life because I'm writing so much for this fandom it's crazy. But hey, I saw this prompt, and it's amazing, so here we go. This is going to be a longer one, but I hope to finish it soon!
> 
> Link to the prompt at the kinkmeme: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/7005.html?thread=2609757#cmt2609757  
> I hope you like it, anon! :]

It’s for the best, when it ends.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s always for the best.

His breakups always end with Andy telling him how he can do better, how the other person in the relationship was a real jackass, while Quynh usually is more sensitive about it and tries to keep her opinions for herself, knowing that Joe is really not going to miraculously get over a relationship just because it had made him miserable.

“I thought he was different,” Joe mumbles defensively as he slides into Andy’s beat-up Ford Ka, slamming the passenger door closed once and then again when it doesn’t close properly the first time.

“He was an asshat,” Andy tells him vehemently, her hand with middle finger extended stuck firmly out of the window, aimed at Chris, who is yelling at them from where he’s hanging out of the window of his flat, screaming obscenities. “I hope he falls and breaks his neck.”

Chris hadn’t seen the breakup coming, because hadn’t Joe and him been happy together? They had been compromising so well lately, and really, was Joe going to give up after all the effort Chris had put into making this work?

When Joe had stood his ground and told him that forcing someone to change wasn’t compromising, and that being unsupportive of your partner’s choices and career was a dick move, and that Chris was lazy and selfish in bed, Chris had turned angry.

So while Joe had intended to take the time to gather the stuff he’d left at Chris’s flat, it only took him a few moments to come to the conclusion that he could always buy new clothes, and that spending even a single second longer listening to Chris insulting his very being was not worth it.

He’d turned around and left, gone back to where Andy was waiting for him, the engine of her tiny car still running.

So yes, it’s for the best, because Chris had been an asshole. It had started out nicely enough when they started dating a year ago, but then again, it always does. It’s always great until it isn’t anymore; when people start to find what was previously endearing annoying, and when jests turn into full-blown criticisms.

But that doesn’t mean that the optimistic romantic living in Joe’s bleeding heart doesn’t howl at the loss of yet another relationship.

Joe gets attached. He falls in love easily and deeply. He has always found within himself an endless well of patience to excuse the bad behaviour of his boyfriends, but as he is getting older their bullshit becomes harder to deal with, and all of his relationships seem to end in bitter disappointment. And he isn’t 16 anymore, dammit, he’s nearing 30, it’s about time to get his fucking shit together.

But how can he, when he is never good enough? He is too idealistic, too sentimental. He is too unorganised, his job as a freelance artist is not a ‘real’ job. But it is, and Joe is successful with it, in the way that he loves it and that he keeps getting commissioned more and more, and sure, money is a bit on the tighter end of things, but Joe would rather live in a tiny flat and work his dream job than sell his soul to corporate for a few more square metres to his name.

And when he finally does find someone who doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the art thing, or the poetry thing, or the _Joe_ thing, they do not share his views on monogamy or religion or whatever else they fundamentally disagree with. He thrives on the unorganised chaos of his life, on the little trinkets he keeps that are of infinite sentimental value, and it’s apparently impossible to find someone to share his life with who will look upon Joe and find his quirks redeeming qualities instead of wrinkles to be smoothed over in the process of ironing him to fit so snugly into their ideals.

Still, Joe keeps trying, and every single time, he gets disappointed.

“I’m going to egg the bastard,” Andy tells him, the threat audible in the fiery passion in her voice. She’s not kidding about it. She’s done it before, and it had been glorious at the time, when Joe had still believed in broken hearts and revenge. Now, his heart wasn’t broken but it was aching. He wouldn’t be missing Chris as much as he would miss being _with_ Chris, in the way that one can mourn _love_ but not necessarily _the lover_. “And then I’ll key his car, the fucking dick.”

Joe laughs despite his misery. “Please don’t, Quynh will kill me if you get caught for vandalism again.”

“That guy’s mere existence is vandalism,” Andy seethes, and she slams the palm of her hand against the steering wheel to honk angrily at the Toyota Prius that just cut her off. Joe grabs the handle on the door as Andy starts her pursuit, the engine buzzing with exertion as she speeds up and somehow manages to cram it in front of the Prius at the next traffic light.

The Prius honks loudly, and Andy takes her revenge by pulling up agonisingly slowly when the traffic light turns green.

“It’s fine,” Joe says, although he’s not sure if he’s trying to convince himself that getting murdered by some starched suit in a hybrid car is fine, or that he’s trying to get Andy to drop the subject. Anyway, his heart is beating frantically in his throat as a result of Andy’s terrible driving.

“You deserve the world, Joe,” Andy replies, and somehow it sounds like a threat.

–

Andy drops him off at his own place and then they give him two days to mope before they stage an intervention, which comes in the shape of Quynh and Andy armed with a heap of take-out.

“We weren’t sure what you were in the mood for, so we got you everything,” Quynh says matter-of-factly as she disposes the plastic bags onto his coffee table, careful not to place them atop the clutter that resides there.

Joe doesn’t even bother to rise his head from where he is lying on the sofa, a place he has hardly vacated in the past couple of days. He doesn’t have to ask how they came in: they have a key just for this purpose, after all.

Quynh makes a beeline for him while Andy starts the kettle and gets out the plates, navigating the mess that is Joe’s kitchen.

He does rise his head when Quynh hovers next to the sofa, allowing her to sit where his head had just been, and sighing when she pulls his head into her lap to card her fingers through his messy curls. He hasn’t bothered to shower the past couple of days, but she doesn’t pull a face at the grossness of his unwashed face and hair.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles, the lie so painfully obvious it’s pathetic.

“I see that you have done some cleaning,” Quynh says, and Joe knows she means the hurricane that appears to have gone through Joe’s tiny one-bedroom, with him throwing out anything and everything of Chris’s that he could find. It had been therapeutic at the time, but he’d felt empty after he’d offered Chris’s meagre possessions to the trash can.

He hums in response, borrowing his face into the soft fabric of the hoodie that is most definitely Andy’s, considering it’s got some vague rock band’s name stitched across the front.

“How bad is it?” Andy asks when she joins them, somehow managing to carry all the bags of take-out and the plates and the electric kettle and a mug with a tea bag of Joe’s favourite tea already in there. The food smells amazing, and Joe is hungry, so he forces himself to sit upright as Andy takes out containers of tagine and couscous and goi cuon.

“I’m never going to date again,” he tells them when he accepts the plate Andy hands him.

“Of course, darling,” Quynh says after a moment, her worried frown mirrored by Andy’s own concerned expression.

Neither of them believes him.

–

Joe stays true to his word.

He takes the next year all for himself, introducing the longest period he has been single since he was 16, and consequently, also the longest dry spell since he lost his virginity. It allows him to focus on other things, such as himself, and his art. He doesn’t need a relationship to be complete, and it surprises him how much easier life is when you don’t have to take anyone else’s opinion into consideration.

He takes a long holiday over the summer and travels to his extended family in Tunisia, a trip he’s been wanting to go on for over a decade but never managed to convince his previous partners to tag along on.

He’s still single when he celebrates his 30thbirthday, a milestone that has him eyeing Andy’s extensive booze collection with something heavier than just longing.

He’s nowhere near where he had expected to be around this age, and it’s a little bit discouraging. He’d hoped to have settled down by now, to have married, even, and perhaps adopted a cat or even a kid.

His career is going well, though. He couldn’t complain about that: he’s become Instagram famous with his artwork as well as his poetry, and the financial boost the increased sales and popularity are giving him pushes him into the territory of almost-comfortable.

And it’s amazing, for him to be able to do what he loves and make enough money off of it to live normally.

He just really wishes he would have someone to share those achievements with.

Of course, he has Andy and Quynh, who support him unconditionally and to the end of every road, but when Joe collapses into his bed at night, it is always alone.

He has entertained the possibility of bringing home some flings, maybe, but he tried that out when he was younger and his libido was higher, and even in the prime of his sexuality he had never found much satisfaction when it was a stranger he was lying with. For him, sex had never lost its romantic allure, and he craves the vulnerability of opening himself up for someone he trusts.

So he doesn’t go down that road, even if he comes close to inviting some particularly skilled make-out partners into his bed after nights out. It’s the knowledge that it will be a disappointment for the both of them that brings back his common sense and has him bowing out every time. No strings attached isn’t as much fun when one of the parties has trouble staying hard.

Joe focusses on himself instead.

–

He meets Nile at a small art opening that features one of Joe’s works, a figurative piece based on a poem of his, and both painting and poem are portrayed side by side. He has personally translated the poem into four languages, and it’s been applied to the wall around the painting expertly. The title _Everything I missed_ covers the space above it, and they have really tried their hardest to do the piece justice.

It’s an honour to have it displayed. The curator is a good friend of Quynh’s, but they had assured Joe that the spot in the gallery was not just due to her meddling; they had been eyeing Joe’s works for a longer time now, and they were ecstatic to include one in the exhibition.

“It’s a beautiful piece,” Nile compliments when Joe joins her in front of it and introduces himself as the artist. “The distortion of the body is so well done, and that hand… this hand is fantastic. I hate the poem, though. It really makes me cry.” The slightly teary smile she sends him shows that she doesn’t hate it at all.

“I would say I’m sorry, but in this case the crying is completely intentional,” Joe says easily.

“All artists are the same, they all want to trample your heart under their paint-streaked boots,” Nile complains, shaking her head with a chuckle.

“Are you an artist yourself?” Joe asks.

“No,” Nile says. “I sketch sometimes, but that’s about it. Although my friend Nicky thinks my cat doodles are fantastic.”

Joe laughs, and she gets a glint in her eyes as she looks around quickly and then pulls out her phone, pulling up one of her more recent doodles. “He has this amazing cat, Ravioli. It’s basically just a blob of fur.” The doodle shows exactly that: a blob of fur with a face and one extended paw that is in the process of knocking a cactus off of a table.

It’s adorable.

“I think your friend might be onto something.”

“Well, I definitely don’t know about that, but it’s easy to give him birthday gifts, at the very least.” She puts her phone back into the pocket of her green dress. She wiggles her eyebrows at him when she catches him watching, in that universal way all women do when their dress has pockets and someone notices.

Joe can’t help but laugh at her antics.

They talk about art, and it’s not long before Instagram comes up and she slips out her phone again to look Joe up.

“This one is amazing,” she says as she taps on a collaboration Joe had done with Booker, a graffiti artist located in Manchester. It had been fun to do, and it had given him a lot of much-needed publicity.

“It’s been painted over by now,” Joe tells her, looking over her shoulder at the piece in question. “Graffiti never lasts long.”

“That’s such a shame,” Nile says, and she really seems to mean it. She goes to Booker’s Instagram and follows him too, although the black-and-white look of the page makes her frown a little. The collaboration Joe and he had done had been colourful, but Booker prefers to strip the photos of his work of colour when he posts them. “Oh, he’s from Manchester? That’s where I live now. I’ve never heard of him, though.”

“He likes to fly under the radar,” Joe tells her. She frowns and taps on a few of the artworks Booker has posted, most of them including himself, hooded and unrecognisable, applying the finishing touches.

“I think I know this place,” she mumbles, liking the picture and then going back to Booker’s page to follow him.

Joe spends entirely too long socialising with Nile, who has amazing opinions on just about anything, until a friend of hers comes over and tells her that they really need to go.

“I’m moving to London in a few weeks,” Nile tells Joe just before they part ways. “Do you maybe want to stay in touch?”

“Yes,” Joe says, finding within himself that he really means it. They exchange phone numbers.

Nile becomes an intricate part of Joe’s life, making his year infinitely better by just merely existing. She is the best friend Joe had desperately been missing, and for the first time in a long while, Joe thinks he is happy.

So when he gets the call that a gallery is interested in doing a solo exhibition on just Joe’s work, Nile is the first one he calls to share the news.

–

The opening is a big success, and it’s busy.

Joe has spent the past hour weaving his way through the gallery, talking to art critics and friendly artists and even some of his old professors of university, who all have nothing but the kindest words for his work and the setup of the exhibition. Joe is proud of it himself, having spent months tweaking the concept and then weeks in anticipation as the gallery was transformed to fit his vision.

He has greeted Andy and Quynh, who are stealing the show almost more than Joe’s art is, with Andy in a sharply tailored suit and Quynh in a jaw-dropping mermaid style dress she designed herself.

During a lull in the conversation he is having with one of the professors, he excuses himself and plucks a glass of wine from one of the trays held aloft by a waiter. He nods at the man in thanks. He doesn’t drink, but it is grounding to have something to fiddle with, and the thin stem of the fine glass suffices just fine as he twirls it between his fingertips.

He looks around in search for his friends, but Quynh and Andy appear to have magically disappeared now he needs them, and he has yet to spot Nile at all.

When his gaze meets that of Merrick, a weaselly big pharma guy who had shown interest in some of Joe’s pieces to decorate the walls of his multimillion dollar company, claiming that he did like to be _trendy_ , and Joe affirms that the man is indeed sauntering up to Joe with a grin that can only be considered vulturous, Joe does the only logical thing and makes a run for it.

He has spent the past hour in non-stop conversation and now he is in need of a companion it’s hard to find one, so out of sheer necessity Joe hides himself in one of the less visited corners of the exhibition.

It’s intentional, as the piece he has hung there is on the more controversial side of things. Joe is known for his figurative style, with most of his paintings leaning toward the melancholic nowadays, but this particular piece is a foray into the abstract. It’s not Joe’s favourite, and for a long time he considered keeping it out of the exhibition at all. But it fits well with the theme, and it is part of the process that facilitated the creation of some of the other pieces, so he kept it, if only as an afterthought.

There’s a man standing in front of it. His long fingers are curled around a wine glass of his own, but he doesn’t appear to have drunk any, and there’s tension in his shoulders as he stares at the art in front of him.

It’s the best hiding place Joe is going to find.

“What do you think of it?” Joe asks curiously as he comes to a halt a metre or so away from the man, trying not to intrude on his personal space too much but also trying to make it obvious that they are friendly, and that they are talking, and that certain cherub-like big pharma guys are very, very unwelcome.

The man is dressed in a light grey suit, and the colour brings out the greyness of his clear eyes. He has a strong profile and high cheekbones, and he is stunning when he turns to face Joe.

“I think… I think the artist was lonely, when he painted this,” the man starts, his syllables rounded by the traces of a strong Italian accent and his words spoken slowly and deliberately. He doesn’t seem to be aware that he is talking to the artist currently, and Joe is not about to correct him. “It’s melancholic, like the artist is yearning for something beyond their grasp, not even something they have necessarily lost, but something they have never had.”

The man laughs softly and shakes his head, a faint blush colouring his cheeks a rosy shade as his words catch up with him. “I am sorry, talking about art has never been a skill of mine. I try to sound like I know what I am talking about, but honestly, I think I might just be projecting.”

Joe is trying his best not to gape at the thoughtfulness of this man, who claims to be no critic even when he weaves together words Joe has been craving to hear from almost all the men he’s ever let into his life. “Isn’t that the power of art, when it resonates within you in such a manner?” he urges, wanting to hear more of this stranger’s thoughts.

“It might be,” the man agrees slowly, but the moment of his introspection appears to have been shattered, and he closes himself off from Joe’s prying. He is clearly uncomfortable, his hand rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous manner. “Like I said, I really don’t know much about art appreciation. What do you think of it?”

Joe opens his mouth to answer, toying for a moment with the idea of pretending that this art isn’t his, but he never gets the chance to make a decision on that regard.

“Joe!” Nile calls out from behind him, and Joe spins around to grin at her and pull her into a hug. She looks stunning, the green of her dress so reminiscent of what she’d worn the very first day they met, and the shade looks wonderful on her. He tells her as such, and she laughs and does a little twirl in response to his compliment, sticking her hands into the pockets of the dress to show that yes, it has pockets! “You look very handsome yourself. I see you have met Nicky? Nicky, this is Joe, the artist.”

Nicky is a faintly familiar name, and Joe thinks Nile might have mentioned him before, although he can’t remember when or why.

Nile tucks herself against Nicky’s side, even as Nicky groans and flushes further as the realisation hits him.

“The artist?” he hisses, making a gesture with his hand that distinctly shows his unhappiness at only finding that out now.

“Nice to meet you, Nicky,” Joe interrupts Nicky’s freaking out, holding out his hand for Nicky to shake.

Nicky stares at it for a few moments before he transfers his wine glass from his right to his left hand and takes it, shaking it briefly. His palm is clammy and slightly cold, but his skin is soft to the touch.

“I’m so sorry that I just- tried to, uh, interpret this art piece in front of you. I am so embarrassed.”

“Oh Nicky,” Nile laughs, clearly finding some delight in the rosiness of Nicky’s cheeks.

“It’s fine,” Joe assures him, stepping a little closer when he can see Merrick’s eye on him in his periphery, making sure to look like he’s in deep conversation to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible. “I think you were most insightful. It’s definitely true, I can remember feeling very lonely when I painted this.”

Nicky clears his throat, his eyes flickering between Joe, who is now very close, and Nile, tucked in next to him.

“Hopefully,” Nicky’s gaze is intense as he focusses fully on Joe, “you feel less lonely now.”

The words are so kind and earnest, and Joe’s heart bleeds within his chest.

–

Joe spends the rest of the evening mingling. He doesn’t get out from talking with Merrick, but before the awful man can lapse into a nasal speech about the benefits for Joe if he were to gift some of his pieces to his company, Andy sweeps in and saves him from the fate of being bored to death.

“Is it just me or does he get more pitiful with the second?” Andy murmurs under her breath. “He basically reeks of desperation. Quynh says he does this to every artist he meets.”

“And here I thought I was special.”

Andy chuckles. “It’s almost like you don’t appreciate my timing. Did I interrupt something important?”

“I love your timing,” Joe is quick to assure her. “It’s the best timing.”

Andy brings him to Quynh and Nile, who are standing close to each other and look appropriately guilty when Andy and Joe approach.

“Have you met Nile’s friend?” Quynh says nonchalantly, looping her arm around Andy’s waist as she sticks herself back to Quynh’s side. Andy presses a kiss against Quynh’s temple, and they are sickeningly beautiful together.

“I have, yes,” Joe replies coolly, not rising to the bait.

At least that explains the guilty looks Quynh and Nile were exchanging. When Joe introduced Nile to Andy and Quynh after she had moved to London, the three women had taken to each other seamlessly. It’s nice, that his friends are getting along so well, but nothing could have prepared Joe for the power of the three of them combined when they turn against him.

“Why is that man sending you such weird looks?” Nicky’s voice suddenly sounds from behind them. He joins their little group and hands Nile a full wine glass, which she takes gratefully, although not without sending another worried glance over his shoulder.

“That’s Merrick,” Andy says darkly.

“He’s a potential buyer,” Joe explains.

“He’s a vulture, ready to pick the last flesh of any starving artist’s bones,” Quynh butts in. “He feeds on the misery of others.”

Nicky looks stunned by the intensity of their declarations, and Nile takes pity on him.

“He’s a bit strange,” she explains, completely understating the terror that is Merrick.

“Please tell me you’re not going to sell to him,” Andy says.

Joe shrugs. “Maybe if he’s willing to drop a few million quid.” He laughs when all of their heads whip around to look at him. “I’m kidding. He wants to get them for free, anyway. Apparently it’s a great investment on his part, and I should be honoured to have my artwork up on his very expensive walls.”

“He’s a shameless little dipshit. Why are they even letting him into these things? That guy wouldn’t know good art if it shat him in the face,” Andy growls. Quynh sends her a look, and Andy turns a bit mellower under the warning in her gaze, mumbling under her breath that _it’s true, dammit_.

“He sounds horrible,” Nicky says, worried frown still in place.

“It’s fine, it’s part of the experience,” Joe assures him, sending Nicky a blinding smile that seems to be sufficient; the frown smooths out somewhat, and while Nicky doesn’t exactly smile at him, he looks less worried than before.

–

“Al-Kaysani’s _Lost in Darkness_ showcases the perfect marriage between literature and visual art: he uses his poetic mastermind to bring his astoundingly beautiful pieces to a whole new level. Al-Kaysani is definitely up and coming, and we are excited to see what he will do next.”

Nile lowers her phone after she’s recited a portion of the art critic’s overwhelmingly positive review, grinning at him at full force when he ducks his head a little bashfully.

The exhibition had been much more successful than Joe had dared hope, and it is amazing. This is what he has been working toward for years now, all those years of living on a starving artist’s wage to get some semblance of recognition, and now he has it… The feeling is indescribable.

“You deserve it,” Nile tells him, leaning over the table to squeeze his hand. She doesn’t let go and instead takes the opportunity to weave their fingers together. “Nicky was very impressed too. Apparently my cat doodles are nothing in comparison to your anatomy studies.”

Joe laughs. It clicks into place now, where he’d heard Nile talk about Nicky before: he is the owner of the fluffy cat of which many doodles have come into existence over the last year. Nile likes to doodle Ravioli on napkins and she has even snuck a masterpiece of hers into one of Joe’s sketchbooks.

“I’m sure he still prefers your art,” Joe assures her.

“I don’t think so, he’s always been much more of a dick than a pussy man,” Nile says nonchalantly, and Joe chokes on his mouthful of tea, coughing as it goes down the wrong pipe.

“Please tell me you did not just say that,” Joe wheezes as he tries to regain his breath as well as his composure, but it’s impossible. Nile is giggling uncontrollably even in the aftermath of Joe’s near-choking incident, and his facial expression only seems to fuel her.

“Sorry, it’s just- it was worth it, c’mon, you can’t tell me you didn’t think it was funny.”

“You nearly killed me!” Joe whines dramatically.

“Oh, poor baby,” Nile coos, leaning in close to press a wet kiss to his bearded cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

Joe just grumbles, and Nile eventually calms down enough to resume a somewhat normal conversation.

–

Joe’s 32nd birthday comes and goes, and with it come some changes. He’s successful enough by now to upgrade from a one-bedroom flat to a two-bedroom, and while the space really isn’t much larger per se, it will give him the opportunity to work from home without having to dismantle his bed for his bigger projects, and the location is just slightly nicer and the lighting is really a lot better. It’s an airy space with big windows and high ceilings.

He asks his friends to please help him move, and Andy manages to borrow a van from work, which Joe is infinitely grateful for. Nile supplies the muscles, and she even invites Nicky to come help.

She shrugs when Joe complains about the pure ridiculousness of having Nicky come down from Manchester to help a guy he doesn’t know move. “Nicky doesn’t mind. And we can really use the extra muscle.”

Quynh promotes herself to overseer, and she supplies the coffee and tea and mostly spends the entire day looking at Andy’s ass and shoulders. It sounds like she’s not doing anything important, maybe, but the undivided attention of her girlfriend’s hungry gaze makes Andy walk just a little faster, and the boost in productivity is really worth it.

Nicky is helpful too, never complaining about the heavy things they make him carry, and when Andy nearly drops the sofa they are moving together on him while manoeuvring around a particularly difficult corner in the stairwell, he just laughs and waves away the apologies.

They’re all sweaty and slightly cranky when everything is finally stuffed into the small space, and while the flat is an upgrade from Joe’s previous one, it looks almost impossibly small with all his furniture stashed in the living room.

“You have a lot of stuff,” Nile decides as she gazes at the tower of boxes filled to the brim with art supplies that covers the entire left wall, and then the other tower that is filled with souvenirs and trinkets he has collected throughout his travels or been given by friends and colleagues.

“This is nothing,” Quynh butts in, sending Andy _a look_. Andy seems completely unperturbed. She retreats to the balcony to light a cigarette, closing the door behind her before Joe can complain at her screwing up the pristine white walls.

Nicky for his part looks absolutely beat, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat and his body crumpled against the back of Joe’s sofa. “The last time I walked so many stairs was during that fire drill,” he tells Nile with a sigh, grimacing as he stretches his aching limbs. “I was on the 32nd floor.”

They all laugh at the misery on his face at the memory, and Nile bumps her shoulder into his good-naturedly.

“We’re all happy that you could come and help, Nicky. I’ve never seen anyone direct Andy quite so sternly without her getting mad at them.”

Nicky flushes slightly and shrugs. “She has horrible lifting posture.”

It had been fun, to witness Nicky berating Andy for her bowed back when she lifted a particularly heavy box, fussing over the possibility of her blowing out her back over some paintings.

Andy had pretended not to listen, of course, but the next time she lifted something her posture was remarkably better.

“Is everything here now?” Nile asks.

“No, there’s still some boxes at the old place,” Joe replies absent-mindedly, looking over Quynh’s shoulder to put in his two cents on the take-out she is ordering. “Can we get Indian? It’s been a long time.”

Quynh shrugs. “I think that should be fine, but you’ll have to pick up some baklava as well. Andy’s going to go rabid otherwise.”

“There’s a good bakery on the way,” Joe remembers, and Quynh nods and places the order.

Nicky groans as he forces himself back onto his feet, causing Nile to yelp as her resting place is suddenly disturbed and she nearly falls sideways. “I’ll come with you. It’s quicker to move the boxes if it’s the two of us, right?” Nicky explains at their questioning gazes. “Do you think it’ll fit in the Panda?”

“It should,” Joe decides, thinking of the small stack that’s left and the absolutely miraculous amount of shit Nicky had managed to cram into his small car on the first ride over. The van had been amazing for the larger pieces of furniture, but most of Joe’s art supplies had been carefully moved by Nicky in his dark green Fiat Panda.

“Let’s go, then,” Nicky decides, and Joe follows him out the door and down the stairs toward the parking lot. He hands Joe the keys when they get to the car. “You should probably drive, my legs feel like spaghetti noodles.”

Joe chuckles and takes the keys.

Nicky settles on the passenger seat next to him, his fingers immediately fiddling with the radio as the first thing that comes on when Joe turns the keys in the ignition is a classical music station. He changes it to pop music, although it’s clear he’s not as much into that.

“I like the classical notes when I’m driving,” he explains. “It keeps the road rage at bay.”

Joe laughs at the little smile that plays around Nicky’s mouth when he says it, and it’s hard to imagine such a sweet, mild-mannered man to be subjected to something as primal and feral as road rage, but the thought of Nicky doing breathing exercises to Beethoven while some jackass in a Prius cuts him off is quite amusing nonetheless.

Maybe he should try to get Andy hooked on the same coping method. He thinks back wistfully to her beat-up Ford Ka, who she had expertly totalled after nearly a decade of trusty service. It was inevitable, really, but the smoking remains of the little car had been sad to behold nonetheless.

Joe turns out of the parking lot and onto the road, fiddling with the clutch and cursing under his breath when the engine roars unhappily as he plants his foot on the accelerator with a bit too much gusto.

“You have to sweet talk her a little,” Nicky supplies, smoothing his hand over the dashboard. “She’s a lady with great temperament.” There’s a mischievous twinkle in Nicky’s eyes.

It doesn’t take them too long to get back to Joe’s old place, now dreadfully barren in the aftermath of their moving day. Nicky helps him carry the last boxes out to the car, his grip on the cardboard gentle and his movements deliberate and secure as he carefully places them in the back of the car. The back seat has been folded down to make more room, and for a moment Joe doesn’t think the boxes are going to fit until Nicky does some rearranging and they suddenly have space to spare.

It’s a bittersweet moment when Joe locks the door of his old flat behind him, the closing of a chapter he’s not sure he’s entirely ready to say goodbye to yet, but his new place really is a lot better.

It’s also not the time to be getting sentimental; if he speaks out any doubts in front of his friends now, he’s quite sure they will have his head. It has been a very tiresome day.

“Thanks again for coming down here to help, you really didn’t have to,” Joe says as he buckles up and starts the car again, Nicky once again seated next to him.

“Of course. Nile said you could use the help and it’s not like I had any other plans,” Nicky assures him.

“Well, I can imagine there’s nicer things to do with your weekend than helping someone you don’t even know move.”

“Maybe,” Nicky replies with a shrug. It’s clear he disagrees.

“What kind of work do you do?” Joe asks him after a moment of silence. Nicky has turned to fiddling with the radio again, tuning in on a station that isn’t blasting mindless commercials. He pulls a face when he hears the music, though, and quickly changes to another station.

“I’m an accountant,” Nicky says.

It catches Joe off guard. He hadn’t expected Nicky to work such a mundane job. He’s met more of Nile’s friends over the two years he has known her now, and most of them were army vets or dog trimmers or vegan activists. Accountancy seemed very banal in comparison. Joe isn’t even sure if he thinks the job fits Nicky; he doesn’t really know much about the man, but in Joe’s opinion it is a waste of such a handsome face to slave away in an office at some mind-numbing job.

“Do you like it?”

“Sure,” Nicky replies with a shrug. “It’s just a job. It pays well and I don’t mind it. I have nice colleagues.”

And that is just mind-boggling; Nicky’s easy acceptance of working a job he doesn’t particularly enjoy. Joe has never been the kind to even entertain the thought of doing something he is not passionate about. It’s one of the many problems he used to run into, when he was still dating. His ex-boyfriends never quite understood his unwillingness to simply settle for a decent paycheck in a mediocre job, and the decision he made instead to bust his ass off to try and make ends meet while doing something he genuinely enjoyed.

“I know it’s not very exciting,” Nicky continues, “but I have never been very artistic, and it’s fine. I like having security and doing a job I’m good at. But I truly admire you; you have taken the leap and you are doing something you love, no matter what other people say about it. That’s really brave.”

Joe has to remind himself to look at the road, although the urge to gape at Nicky is nearly overwhelming. “A lot of people think it’s foolish.”

“Then those people are idiots,” Nicky decides. “I bet they tell their children they’re not allowed to jump in puddles when it rains either.” Nicky says it so matter-of-factly, but there’s a small smile curling around his mouth. “I don’t have to tell you to not let them pull you down. It’s clear you’re very capable of doing that yourself. But still, I think it’s really brave, what you’re doing. And you really are very talented.”

Joe’s mouth is dry, and he clears around the lump that has settled in his throat. “Thanks.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Nile's birthday, Joe and Nicky spend some quality time together, Joe meets Ravioli the cat and sometimes? Sometimes life is really hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read, commented, subscribed and left kudos! <3 It really means the world to me. This fandom is so sweet!
> 
> I also really hope 3 chapters will be enough, this is starting to become much bigger than I intended and I might need a fourth chapter to bring everything to the sweet ending they deserve, but we'll see!

Joe groans when he finally puts down his paint brush, flexing his cramped fingers. It’s been an interesting twenty-four hours; he hasn’t slept, really, has instead just settled for some fitful semi-dozing on the paint-speckled sofa in the corner of the room, and he nearly drank from his paint water five times before he decided that _maybe_ using a mug to clean his brushes in was just making his life needlessly difficult.

There are some mental challenges one just shouldn’t have to face whilst trying to maintain one’s sanity with so many deadlines looming on the horizon.

Still, stressed out or no, he takes a few moments to catch a well-needed break and tries to breathe new life into his right hand, trying not to think about how the last time it had cramped this badly Joe had been doing things of a distinctly different (and much more pleasurable) nature.

He clumsily holds his phone in his left while he rolls his wrist and stretches his fingers. He unlocks it and nearly drops it when he sees the 783 WhatsApp messages he has missed, plus seven calls, all of them from Nile.

Joe quickly decides that simply calling her back is the least painful way to go about this, and he grabs his empty water bottle and walks to his kitchen while the phone is ringing.

“You are alive!” Nile says enthusiastically when she finally responds.

“783 messages!” he complains. He is thumbing through the messages and sees the text that created the commotion in the first place: Nile inviting them to her birthday celebrations, which would consist of dinner and playing boardgames.

Joe shudders at the memory of their last boardgame session, where Quynh had run the Monopoly board with an iron fist and caused Joe to slip into bankruptcy so early on in the game it was terrifying. Andy had nodded her approval of her girlfriend’s tyranny and held her banker position without even once taking sympathy on Joe, even though he was practically begging her to have mercy on his poor, poor soul.

It had been an experience, alright.

(Joe sucks at boardgames, but he hasn’t managed to convince Quynh and Andy to play Pictionary with him since the Great Pictionary Tragedy of 2013, so boardgames it is.)

Anyway, Andy’s response to Nile’s idea is hilarious, asking Nile if she is turning 51 instead of 26 and if she should be bringing her bingo hat, and Quynh is trying to dissuade her but is entirely unsuccessful.

“It got a little messy,” Nile agrees. “But how are you? I don’t think I have seen you in, what, a month?”

“It’s not been that long,” Joe replies, filling his bottle under the tap. “It’s only been… no, it has been a month. And a half.”

“A month and a half!” Nile echoes, unhappily. “I can hardly remember what you look like, anymore.”

“Is this you asking for a portrait of me for your birthday? Because I can do that. I think I have some lying around, actually. Would you prefer duck face or cool hipster?”

“You are not a cool hipster, Joe. You are, like, the dad of hipsters.”

“Did you just call me old?” Joe seriously considers hanging up on her. She deserves it, at this point.

“You are, old man. Ancient. Have you even left your flat this past week?”

“I live alone, Nile. Someone has to do the groceries.”

“Oh my god,” Nile cackles.

Joe frowns at his kitchen cupboards like they are Nile, and like he can make them feel how disappointed he is in them. “Are you mocking me?”

“A little. But I miss you, you know. As soon as you’re done with these commissions we’re going to watch some stupid reality show together. Apparently _Are You The One_ has a queer season.”

“Fuck.”

“Yes, exactly. Wanna watch some hot muscle guys get it on? Because I sure as hell know I do.”

Joe is pretty adamant in his agreement on this particular matter. “Fuck yes.”

He plops down onto the sofa in his living room, kicking his feet up on the very cluttered coffee table and settles in to read through the rest of the messages.

“Do you like the boardgame idea? I figured that you probably wouldn’t be up for partying after, you know, disappearing off the face of the Earth for _a month and a half_.”

Joe laughs and assures that he likes it plenty.

“Wait, you dragged in Nicky?”

 _Hiding behind Italians is always a bad idea, Nile,_ Andy wrote, to which Nicky replied a quick, _That’s true, we’re really squishy_.

“I needed more ammunition, and Nicky is like- the best shield. You have no idea how many creepy guys he’s sent away by merely existing. Apparently he’s really good at glaring.”

“It’s a text conversation, Nile.”

“Yeah, well. I was desperate. Andy started insulting Thanksgiving. _Thanksgiving,_ Joe.”

“It’s not the best of holidays, you have to admit,” Joe says mildly.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Okay.” It’s quiet on the other side of the line. “Uh. Please don’t go?”

“You know what, I will take it. Only because I haven’t seen your stupid face in-”

“A month and a half, yes, I’m getting the message here.”

He focusses back on the text conversation he is still ploughing through.

Nicky claims he’s looking forward to the celebration, and Nile smartly shifts the attention to him by mentioning that he will bake her birthday cake and that he will, also, bring the wine. Which causes Quynh to become more interested, and about a hundred messages are just them discussing the merits of Italian over French wine, although Nicky does admit he has some Spanish wine as well, gifted to him by an ex-boyfriend.

 _You get wine from your exes?? I don’t even get any from my current girlfriend,_ Quynh complains.

 _Nicky is special like that,_ Nile butts in, and Nicky quickly waves it away and pushes the blame entirely on some Fabio, who is probably the ex-boyfriend.

“Are you reading everything?” Nile asks.

“Yeah, I’m on the wine conversation.”

The conversation eventually devolves in Andy and Nicky having a dog picture battle, with Nicky clearly winning. It looks like he’s got the entire dog population of Manchester living in his camera roll, and even Andy has to be impressed by that.

It winds down after that, blissfully so.

 _I hate all of you_ , Joe is sure to remind them. _And we’re definitely not playing Monopoly._

“Oh fuck no,” Nile agrees when she reads his text. “We should burn it, ceremoniously.”

–

They don’t play Monopoly.

Joe just isn’t sure if Catan is an improvement or not.

It was, in the beginning, but that was before Quynh started drinking the wine Nicky brought like it’s water, egging him on to match her glass for glass – he declines, saying that his alcohol tolerance is shit, and Nile agrees vehemently with that statement so Quynh lets it go, doesn’t even tease him about nursing the same glass during the entire evening – and then, well, Nicky decided to turn the game on its head.

It had been civil at first, with the game progressing like they all tend to: Joe is struggling to survive; he hardly ever gets resources even though he built both his settlements next to number 8 hexes, and when he _does_ get some, he rolls 7 when it’s finally his turn and he loses half of them anyway. Nile is going steady, although the sheer collection of sheep she’s getting is sending her into some type of hysterics. Quynh is going for the biggest army, placing knight cards down like they owe her something, and Andy is completely terrorising everyone.

Nicky, in the meanwhile, doesn’t bother anyone. He takes pity on Joe, smiling softly at him when Joe asks for resources no one is willing to trade him (“I can’t help it that you never need sheep!” Nile defends herself when Joe complains about it) and he sometimes even slips him double the amount of bricks he’s asking for. Andy notices it, of course, but Nicky doesn’t even react when Andy cuts through the route he was building purely to fuck with him and to take the longest trading route for herself.

It’s clear who is going to win this round: Andy.

That is, anyway, until Nicky suddenly snipes the fuck out of them, pulling out the development cards he’s been hoarding. He lays claim to all the sheep in the game (which are a lot, with Nile’s predicament) and exchanges them in his sheep harbour for ore, and then upgrades two of his settlements to cities. He puts down another knight card and takes the biggest army achievement from Quynh. He moves the robber to one of Andy’s hexes and takes a card from her, exclaiming in excitement like it’s exactly the one he needs, and then he places a card that lets him build two streets, and builds another settlement. Nile is nearly choking on her laughter while the rest of them look at Nicky as he casually beats Andy, putting everything down neatly as he rakes in victory point after victory point.

He lays down the rest of his development cards, all of them free victory points, and sits back with a smirk when it brings him to a total of 13 against Andy’s 9 (and Joe’s measly 4).

“I think I won,” he says innocently.

Quynh starts laughing then too, and Joe finally lets go of the chuckles he’s been choking on as Andy’s face turns from bafflement into pure murderous intent, and she kicks back her chair before she stands up.

“I’m going for a smoke,” she sniffs, stomping in the direction of the balcony.

“I didn’t go overboard, did I?” Nicky asks as he watches her step out into the dreary London drizzle, shooting him a glare over her shoulder.

“Nah, she’s just a sore loser,” Quynh assures him, taking another sip of her apparently very, very good wine.

“You defended our honour, Nicky,” Nile assures him, leaning in close to press a wet kiss to his cheek, which has him laughing.

“Fuck, this is the best thing that has ever happened,” Joe agrees, leaning close and pressing a kiss to Nicky’s other cheek. “You’re our saviour.”

“Now I’m missing out,” Quynh complains, and she rises from her chair with surprising steadiness for the amount she has drunk and walks over to Nicky, leaning over his head to press an upside-down kiss to his forehead, wet and sloppy.

“Gross,” Nicky complains, wiping at his heated cheeks with his sleeves, the bashful little smile on his face a sight to behold.

“Pictionary time?” Joe suggests brightly, and Quynh groans and takes a deep sip from her glass at the mere idea.

Nile laughs. “One day, you will have to tell me what happened.”

Quynh glares at Joe, and Joe just smiles back innocently.

–

They eventually manage to coax Andy back inside with the promise of food, after she’s chain smoked about seven cigarettes. Quynh pats her hair dry with the fluffy towel Nile went to fetch for her, and coos at her like she’s a particularly fussy child. Andy lets it happen, even leans into it, her eyes flickering over to Nicky, who is sandwiched between Nile and the arm of the love-seat, to let him know that she has not forgotten. Nicky faces her head-on.

Joe thinks it’s hilarious, as does Nile.

The food Nile has ordered is delicious, tacos and burritos in a way that Joe assumes is questionably Mexican, and it’s nice, for all of them to be sitting so close together. Conversation flows easily, with them all asking Joe about his recent projects, and Quynh sharing the exciting news of her clothing line being backed by a big investor. Nile shares that she’s thinking about enrolling in a PhD programme, and they all have nothing but encouragement for her in that regard.

“Art history,” she says, a little bashfully now everyone is heaping praise onto her. “I always wanted to, but it just seemed easier to go work after my master’s.” She teaches art history in secondary school now, and Joe knows she’s an excellent teacher. Very loved by the kids, which is quite the achievement considering they’re all teenagers.

“You will do great,” Joe assures her, squeezing her arm and smiling back at her when she turns to him, nerves clearly displayed on her open face. It’s a leap of faith, maybe, but Joe is an expert at following one’s heart in this regard. He can’t do anything but back her.

“How will I survive another four years of uni without your cookies, though, Nicky?” Nile says then, spinning the conversation away from her and her application process, and to Nicky, whose expression turns from enthusiastic to unimpressed within seconds.

“With decidedly less chance to develop diabetes later in life,” Nicky deadpans, spearing a large piece of chicken on his fork and depositing it on Nile’s plate. She had been very appreciative of the flavouring, and Nicky had quietly been sacrificing his protein to her throughout the meal, much to Nile’s happiness. “Maybe Joe can bake some cookies for you?”

Nile and Joe share a sceptical look.

Quynh takes this opportunity to laugh right at Joe’s face. “Fuck, remember those pot brownies?”

Andy perks up at that. “Those were _fantastic_. There was enough in there to put an elephant to sleep. Best idea you’ve ever had, Joe, hands-down.”

“They were hard as a brick,” Quynh argues.

Andy clearly doesn’t see her point. “They went down well if you soaked them in vodka for a bit.”

Quynh purses her lips in thought and Joe groans.

“I can’t really bake,” he admits.

“Or cook,” Nile adds, earning herself an elbow to the ribs.

“I can cook!” When no one looks particularly believing, he repeats himself for good measure. “I can cook.”

“An egg, maybe,” Nile says, doubt still very much audible in her voice.

Andy laughs, loud and boisterous, and Joe laughs with her.

–

It’s almost half ten by the time Andy and Quynh decide to go home after an evening of laughter and good food and fun. Quynh is definitely on the wrong side of tipsy, and Andy looks absolutely delighted with this as she pries her very affectionate girlfriend’s arms away from Nile’s neck, where they had been wrapped while an uncharacteristically emotional Quynh had been elaborately wishing her happy birthday.

Nicky had given them the bottle of wine that had gone unopened, and Quynh had given him a big kiss on the cheek as thanks.

Joe sticks around for a bit longer. He doesn’t particularly want to go back to his flat yet, where his deadlines await him, ready to pounce the moment he steps over the threshold. He also really hasn’t seen Nile in a while, and Nicky he hardly ever gets to see. The exhibition was months ago, and Nicky hasn’t been in London since.

It’s the logical thing to do, to stick around a little longer.

“I saw some of your newer works,” Nicky says when they are in the kitchen, doing the dishes while Nile tidies the living room. Joe is holding onto his tea towel, his eyes definitely not focussed on Nicky’s strong hands as he scrubs some leftover Italian merengue off of one of the plates. The cake he’d baked had been fantastic, and Nile had promised he could take a few leftover slices home. Joe is a happy man.

“What did you think?”

“They are gorgeous,” Nicky says, and Joe nearly startles at the sheer earnestness in those words. “I especially liked the studies you did of that ballerina, the facial expressions were fantastic.”

Joe had been very proud of those, actually. “The ballerina is one of the local drag queens,” he explains, taking the plate from Nicky and drying it off slowly. “It was an honour to work with him, he’s really talented.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nicky agrees. “But I don’t think anyone could have captured the grace and fluidity of the movements as well as you did. It is almost like he is actually dancing across the canvas.”

And Joe is definitely not fishing for compliments when he pulls his phone out of his pocket and goes to the photo album that holds his newer works. He is just genuinely interested in Nicky’s opinions, even though Nicky is apologising for not knowing anything about art and probably saying the wrong things every other sentence.

Joe isn’t sure how to weave into the conversation that Nicky is saying all the _right_ things without looking like he’s desperate for approval, so he decides it is best to keep that little bit of information to himself.

“I made an Instagram account so I could follow you, is that weird?” Nicky asks when Joe expresses surprise when he mentions he has already seen some of the older pieces in his photo gallery.

Nicky is scrubbing the sides of the sink with a sponge before reaching into the water and pulling out the stop.

“Are you asking me to rate your stalker tendencies?” he teases, and Nicky blinks at him, taking the tea towel from his hands to dry off his fingers. Meticulously and carefully, like Nicky does everything.

“I suppose.”

“I think it’s very nice,” Joe decides, and Nicky gives him a small smile in return.

“Hey guys,” Nile butts in from the living room. “It’s pouring outside. Did you bring an umbrella, Joe?”

Joe groans. “No.” Because he has been living next to the North Sea almost his entire life, and he never learns. “Can I borrow one of yours?”

“It’s too windy out for an umbrella,” Nicky observes, looking out of the window in the living room at the stormy night below.

Joe really should have left when Quynh and Andy did. The weather had been better then, and Andy had offered to drive him home. She had also shrugged as if to say _your loss_ when Joe had declined it, which is something Joe disagrees with on principle. He supposes that, at the very least, he won’t have to be terrified for his life on his way home, although he does groan unhappily at the prospect of getting home completely soaked through.

“I will just drive you,” Nicky decides then, and Joe stares at him. There are many protests forming in his mind, one of which is, _you have been drinking_ , but Nicky had been nursing the same glass of wine the entire evening and not even finished it in the end, or maybe, _I don’t want to bother you_ , but that just sounds sad.

He eventually settles on, “I live on the other side of the city.”

Nicky shrugs. “I am sure traffic will not be that bad, this late?” he muses. “And otherwise, the Panda is warm and dry, it will be fine. Do you mind, Nile?”

“No, of course not. I might already be asleep when you get back, though. I’m exhausted, who knew laughing so much could be so taxing on the body? My food baby and I don’t mind having some time alone,” she jokes, bumping her shoulder into Joe’s as she passes him to go to the kitchen and fetch the leftover cake Joe had been promised. She gives Nicky her house keys so he can let himself in after he has brought Joe home.

Joe envelops her in a big hug after he has slipped on his boots and jacket, holding her close and kissing her on the cheek. “Happy birthday again, little one,” he growls happily as he spins her around, and Nile laughs happily, jokingly telling him to stop: she is 26 now, not 25! He kisses her other cheek for good measure before letting her go and following Nicky out the door and down the stairs.

They make a run for the Panda when they get to the bottom of the stairs, trying to remain somewhat dry despite the devastating downpour.

Joe settles in the passenger seat while Nicky slips into the driver’s seat beside him, and they are already nearly drenched just from that quick run alone.

Nicky turns the key in the ignition and first changes the radio station before turning on the heater and the wipers.

“I hate this climate,” Nicky says.

“This is not so bad,” Joe replies.

Nicky stares at him for a few moments, the blankness in his gaze clearly questioning Joe’s sanity, before the corners of his mouth curl up and then he is grinning, and wow. It is almost like the clouds are parting to let the sun shine through. “You are full of shit,” Nicky tells him.

Joe’s laughter in response to that sounds strange to his own ears, but Nicky doesn’t seem to notice it. Instead, he turns on the headlights and starts to back out of his parking space. Nicky also doesn’t comment on Joe being uncharacteristically quiet during the car ride, only speaking up to give Nicky directions.

He can’t help it; he is panicking. Every time he closes his eyes, it is that beautiful grin that remains on his retinas, painted vibrantly against the black backdrop of his closed eyelids. And Joe is not prepared for this.

“We are here,” Nicky says eventually, and Joe startles as he realises he has completely forgotten to give Nicky directions for the last part of the trip. Nicky hasn’t prompted him, either, and he stares at him with a gaze that must be accurately portraying his confusion as Nicky’s smile turns sheepish. He looks away, staring at his own hands on the steering wheel. “I have a good sense of direction.”

“I think I need to revise my opinion on your potential stalking.”

Nicky chuckles. “I do occasionally sleep behind the potted plant on your balcony,” he admits.

“I don’t have any potted plants on my balcony.”

“Well, that would certainly explain some things…”

And Joe laughs, loud and joyful, at the pure ridiculousness of this man. Nicky just smiles, clearly happy with himself.

“Thanks for bringing me home.”

“Of course,” Nicky says, and he truly means it. He turns around in his seat to retrieve the bag with the leftover cake from the backseat. “Before you forget.” He offers the bag to Joe.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Joe says. He unbuckles his seatbelt and moves to open the door when he pauses. “You never saw how it turned out, right? My flat.”

“No?” Nicky answers.

“Would you like to? I mean, not now, of course, it’s late, but maybe tomorrow? Before you drive back up to Manchester?”

“I would love to,” Nicky says.

Joe nods.

“53b, is the number. Just text me when you are heading in this direction, okay? That way I can at least pretend I wear clothes when I’m at home.”

“Okay,” Nicky agrees, “I will see you tomorrow. Sleep well, Joe.”

“Yeah. You too.”

Joe ducks out of the car before he can embarrass himself further.

He feels like he’s 15, fumbling and stumbling his way through his first crush, and it’s not a good look on him, he knows that. He is almost 33. He isn’t looking for a relationship. He doesn’t want to date anyone. It makes no sense to get so flustered from the friendly conversations Nicky and he have. Because that is all this is, and that is all this is going to be.

Just him and Nicky, being pals.

Needless to say, Joe doesn’t sleep very well that night. At least it’s a boost in productivity: he manages to finish another commission, but he gets very little satisfaction from crossing it out on his to-do list.

–

Inviting Nicky to come over to his place was a terribly bad idea.

Joe despairs as he stares at the organised chaos of his flat, knowing that whatever attempts to tidy the place he undertakes will be too little too late. He is briefly reminded of Jesse, the minimalist guy he dated years ago, who had been quite adamant about Joe dumping nearly everything he owned. It didn’t get beyond the third date, that particular endeavour, but Joe knows Jesse wasn’t exactly alone in his opinions on the matter.

But then again, Nicky had helped Joe move his ample possessions earlier this year. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him to see the clutter.

Most of his wall space is covered in art or pictures, all of them gifts from friends and colleagues, and he has two big bookcases pushed up against the walls that are filled to the brim with books on art, history and art history, as well as many catalogues and sketchbooks, organised with no thought in mind other than, oh, here is available space.

His coffee table is covered in drawings and charcoal, and there’s a particularly vibrant paint stain in the shape of his butt on his sofa that he hasn’t gotten around to clean properly yet, and the wood sculpture Andy and Quynh had given him after their last travel to Africa still sits in its bubble plastic casing, the only thing poking out the detailed giraffe head. He hasn’t trusted himself to keep it neat, and if the paint specks on the giraffe’s nose are anything to go by, it was a fair assessment of his own lacking abilities.

Joe distracts himself by getting some croissants and other pastries to go from the bakery a couple streets over, hoping that Nicky doesn’t mind breakfast foods for lunch. He is just stepping back into his flat when his phone buzzes with a text, and it’s of course Nicky, letting him know he will be there in twenty-ish minutes, if traffic allows it.

Joe fills up the time by cleaning the paint off his sofa.

“Hey,” Joe greets, going for his usual blinding smile and hoping he doesn’t look too terribly constipated, when he opens the door for Nicky some twenty-odd minutes later.

“Hello,” Nicky replies, meeting Joe’s grin with a small, sweet smile of his own. Joe steps aside and lets him in, trying not to hover or fuss as Nicky shrugs off his coat and toes off his shoes.

“Do you want coffee?”

“Please. Black is fine.”

When Joe returns from the kitchen with two mugs, one of them sugary and creamy for himself, and the other dreadfully black and bitter for Nicky, Nicky has stepped up to one of his bookcases and is running his finger along the spines of some of the books in interest. He makes an appreciative noise as he spots one of Joe’s books on Islamic art during the mid-Medieval period. Next to it, Joe’s extensive collection of homoerotic poetry is stashed, and Nicky looks quite appreciative of that, too.

“It’s cosy,” Nicky comments when they sit down on the sofa, and he really looks like he means it.

Joe is just waiting for the biting remark, the ugly sneer, the anything other than this kind interest Nicky is showing.

Instead, he inquires about a piece Joe got himself during his visit to his extended family in Tunisia, and he encourages Joe to tell the entire tale behind its origins even when he grows self-conscious with the realisation that there is no way Nicky could actually be interested in hearing about all this.

Except, Nicky is.

After they have finished their coffee, Joe shows him the extra bedroom he has been using as his studio. There is a mural on the far wall, a sunset over the Mediterranean, which he had photographed and sketched so often during his vacation to Tunis.

“Tell me about this one,” Nicky says as he gestures at a canvas that is stored against the mural, a landscape of green fields dotted with cows. It is one of his personal pieces.

“I don’t usually do landscapes very often,” Joe says, although he knows it sounds ridiculous, standing here in front of a huge ass landscape while looking at another. “But this is for my sister, it is of the polder we grew up next to. She still lives there, in the Netherlands.”

“You grew up in the Netherlands?”

“Yeah, I did. My parents immigrated before I was born, but they are originally from Tunisia. That is where most of my family still lives.”

“Huh,” Nicky says. “When did you move here?”

“After uni. I went to art school back home, but I just, I wanted to get away. So I took a leap of faith and moved here, because it seemed like a better choice than Paris, at the time, and I just never left.” He shrugs. “My parents never quite understood the entire artist thing. Or the gay thing.”

“That is horrible,” Nicky says, and the sympathy in his voice makes Joe’s heart flutter. “You are clearly so talented. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t support you.”

“They just had different things for me in mind,” Joe replies with a nonchalance he only has because this has been his life for the past twenty years, ever since he started taking art classes in secondary school and dropped all his science subjects. “I hoped they would come around, but…”

“They didn’t.”

“Not really, no. We just don’t speak about it, when I go home to visit them. They don’t ask me about my work, or my relationships, and I don’t bring up the subject. It works well enough. Besides, I do have the absolute joy of having a sister who fucked up even more than I did, so at the very least we share the burden.”

“What did she do, become a musician?”

Joe laughs. “No, she started dating a blond, tall, atheist Dutch guy and got pregnant with my niece before getting married. I’m fairly certain she isn’t religious anymore, but we don’t talk about that, either.”

“What do you talk about during family events?”

“Ah. The weather.”

They move on after that, Nicky asking questions about paintings or some of the trinkets Joe has collected over the years, and they laugh together at the funny tales and Nicky even humours him by chuckling whenever he makes a terribly awful pun.

Nicky looks sad when they hug goodbye, but it is getting late and Nicky still has to drive back home.

“You should come back here soon,” Joe tells him before he lets him go and Nicky nods.

“I will.”

And then, with a final smile, he is out the door.

–

When he tells Nile about the invitation to come see a friend’s exhibition up in Manchester when they’re hanging out, she makes him call Nicky.

“He’ll like the company,” she urges, her phone already open to his contact info. Joe feels somewhat nauseous as he stares at the device like it might burn him, although the sheer amount of emojis Nile has attached to Nicky’s nickname makes him laugh.

“Do I even want to know what my contact looks like?” he asks as he unhappily takes the phone from her when she’s poked it thrice against his unmoving hand.

“No,” Nile says, her smile not quite so innocent anymore.

She has attached a picture of Nicky to his contact, too, and it’s a good photo. Nicky’s hair is longer in it, the brown strands windswept and hanging slightly into his startling eyes, and there is a small smile on his face that Joe knows is Nicky’s equivalent of a fond grin.

“It’s pretty last minute, won’t he have to work?” Joe tries.

“Office hours,” Nile responds, eyebrows raised impatiently. Her gaze keeps dropping to the phone and back to Joe, obnoxiously egging him on to just call.

And Joe could, of course. Of course he could call. Still, his finger hovers over the icon.

Nile takes a sip of her bubble tea. When Joe still hasn’t moved by the time she’s chewed her tapioca, she sighs and takes back the phone. “You are an idiot.”

Joe shrieks when she presses the icon and puts the phone on speaker, and he tries to move off the bench and away from her to avoid the conversation but she reaches out and grabs his arm before he can move.

“Hello Nile,” Nicky’s voice sounds just a few rings later, the usual smoothness of his accent made tinny by the poor audio quality.

“Nicky,” Nile starts. “Joe wants to ask you something.”

Joe groans. He feels like he is being tormented by his sister all over again, as this particular scenario is definitely a bit too familiar. How many times had she pushed him into asking out a crush when he was younger? But this isn’t a crush, this is Nicky. Nicky, who is the kind of man who crosses England just so he can help a friend of a friend move, who soothed Andy’s slight unhappiness with the baklava they’d picked up along the way by promising that he would make some for her next time, who said such sweet things about Joe’s art.

Joe doesn’t quite know where Nicky and he stand, beyond the entire friend of a friend thing.

“Okay,” Nicky says as Nile passes the phone over to Joe.

“Hey Nicky,” he says, trying to keep his displeasure out of his voice.

“Hello Joe,” Nicky replies, his accent curling funnily around Joe’s name.

It’s a truly enlightening conversation, and Joe sends Nile a pained look and Nile gestures at him to get on with it. And, almost like he’s there to witness this entire exchange, Nicky is quiet on his side of the call. The only sound that’s transmitted is the rhythmic clacking of keyboard keys.

“I have an exhibition in Manchester this weekend,” he finally says, and Nicky makes a surprised sound on the other side of the line.

“Is it the one on surrealism? I think I have a pamphlet around here.”

Joe blinks. “Yeah, yeah, it is. Would you like to go?”

Nicky, as a matter of fact, would love to go, and they make some tentative plans for the weekend. Joe will go up there on Friday afternoon by train, and they will go to the exhibition on Saturday. Nicky wants to take him to the Castlefield Art Gallery too, if Joe is so inclined, so they have a busy day ahead of them on Saturday. It is, therefore, best if Joe makes the trek back on Sunday.

“I’m proud of you.” Nile pretends to wipe away a tear as she grins at him after the call has ended, and Joe grumbles as he lunges forwards and steals the bubble tea out of her hands, taking a big sip full of tapioca from the cup. “Hey! You don’t even like that!” Nile protests, trying to reclaim the bubble tea that Joe is holding firmly out of her reach.

–

It’s surprisingly easy, talking with Nicky.

Being around Nicky in general is surprisingly easy. Joe prides himself on being a person who can get along with almost anyone, if not genuinely then he can at least pretend quite convincingly, but he doesn’t have to pretend to like Nicky.

He just does.

Nicky hugs him hello when Joe gets off the train, and Joe holds him for maybe slightly too long before letting go. They huddle together underneath Nicky’s umbrella, but not after Joe has commented on the bright rainbow print on the canvas ( _it was on sale_ , Nicky defends), and Nicky points out some places of interest as they walk from the station to Nicky’s flat building.

It’s already getting late, and even though spring is well underway, the overcast skies make the days grow darker early. Still, the world has no business being so chilly in April.

The warmth of Nicky’s flat is a relief. Nicky shows him to the makeshift guest bedroom, which is really just his office with the futon pulled out and made, with an abundance of pillows waiting to comfort Joe’s head for the night. Nicky goes to the kitchen while Joe gets himself situated.

He’s surprised when he pulls out the desk chair to put his bag on it and finds it is already occupied. A light orange, very fluffy cat looks at him with bleary yellow eyes, a quiet purring already originating from its depths as it stares at Joe, not looking the least bit offended that Joe broke its slumber.

It’s the infamous Ravioli, it just has to be.

Joe is surprised when he notices that the white spot on Ravioli’s forehead really does look as much like a heart as Nile’s drawings tend to portray it as. It’s a beautiful cat, and Joe can definitely see why Nile has chosen it as her solitary muse.

He puts his bag down on the floor instead and gently offers his finger for Ravioli to sniff at. The feline does so, eyes closing, and then makes that little prrt sound as it pushes its face against Joe’s hand, demanding scratches.

By the time Joe steps out of the office and into the kitchen, he’s got Ravioli cradled in his arms like it’s a baby, and the cat is purring away happily.

“If you can’t find your cat tomorrow, I definitely didn’t steal him,” he tells Nicky, who makes a noise of surprise as he turns around from the stove, a wooden spoon in his hand. The kitchen smells fantastic, and Joe is very hungry.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Nicky says, mock-sceptically, as he reaches out and scratches Ravioli under its right ear. The purring intensifies dramatically, and Joe can feel the vibrations against his chest.

Joe had never considered himself to be a cat person, but _this_ his heart is not equipped to withstand.

The food is absolutely delicious and Joe is sure to heap plenty of praise onto Nicky as he eats. He doesn’t miss how Nicky’s gaze averts and how his cheeks colour a dusty pink under the attention, Nicky clearly not being used to the boundless gratitude.

They watch a movie until they’re both too tired to follow the already not very mentally challenging plot, and then turn in for the night. Nicky tells him that if he keeps the door open at night Ravioli will come in to snuggle with him, so Joe is very hopeful as he leaves the door slightly ajar before crawling underneath the duvet.

When he wakes up for morning prayer early the next morning, Ravioli is indeed in bed with him, curled up against Joe’s stomach, and Joe has an even harder time than usual to drag himself out of bed.

After performing fajr, he slips back underneath the covers and is delighted when Ravioli doesn’t so much as move a centimetre while Joe fits his body back into the spot he had just abandoned.

Nicky proceeds to drag Joe through Manchester on Saturday, taking him to art museums he must see and tourist sights that are apparently very special, although Nicky has trouble locating most of them (“I don’t think I’ve ever been here,” he murmurs to himself as he peers unhappily at Google Maps and then the empty square before him). They go to the exhibition and they bond over their complete incapability of understanding surrealism. Joe can appreciate the importance of the movement within the developing art world, but it’s really not quite his cup of tea.

It’s the best weekend Joe has had in a long while, and his heart aches when he hugs Nicky goodbye on the platform at the station on Sunday.

–

His 33rd birthday passes in a blur of deadlines and stress.

He gets the opportunity to hold another exhibition, though, and he invites Nile, Andy and Quynh, and his sister and her husband. He mentions it to Nicky, who he has been texting almost on the daily ever since Manchester. Usually their texts don’t consist of much more than the animal videos Nicky seems to be intent on sending at the best moments; Joe has been pulled back from the brink of many a meltdown by Nicky’s well-timed videos of cuddly llamas with party hats and Ravioli chasing laser pointers.

Joe doesn’t try to look too much into the crushing disappointment he feels when he comes to the conclusion during the opening of the exhibition that Nicky isn’t going to come.

He has seen his sister and her husband and even his niece already, the delightful little girl riding high on her father’s shoulders.

“We know it’s not really a place to bring children to,” Robin had said in Dutch, his fingers curled around the small ankles of his daughter, “but she didn’t want to miss it for the world, right, Saar?” Saar had nodded happily, her curly ponytail bobbing along with the movement, her smile so bright and sweet. She has become so big since the last time Joe had seen her.

He expects to find Nicky with Nile, like last time, and is very much confused when there’s a blond at her side instead. He is even more confused when the man turns a little and Joe recognises him as Booker, the graffiti artist he’d collaborated with seemingly a lifetime ago.

Booker had pulled Joe into a hug and Joe had hugged him back, the cogs in his mind still turning as he stares at the two of them. Booker looks better than Joe has ever seen him. He isn’t even nursing a glass of wine even though it is free, and the smiles he sends Nile are almost bashful.

Oh.

He hugs Nile as well, but he can’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Even though Joe had loved his previous exhibition, had revelled in the opportunity to talk to so many people about his art, to see their appreciative glances as they looked at his work, he doesn’t enjoy this one very much. He just wants to go home.

–

Quynh has cooked authentic home-made pho and it smells delicious. It would probably taste delicious, too, if Joe actually managed to stop pitying himself for long enough to take a bite.

“Joe.”

Joe looks up to see both Quynh and Andy staring at him with worried expressions on their faces. He gives them a smile that is watery at best.

“I’m fine, guys,” he says, even though he knows he’s not fooling anyone. They have seen him at his lowest plenty of times, usually after failed relationships or painful conversations with his parents or when he is on the verge of a mental breakdown because nothing in his life is ever easy, which is fine, but _sometimes_ it would just be nice if _something_ took pity on him.

He might live comfortably now, but he has many years of struggling to get by behind him, and Andy and Quynh have always been there for him. They can probably smell his melancholic mood approaching from a mile away.

“We don’t want to push you,” Quynh says, putting down her own bowl of pho and then moving over to where Joe has sunk into the armchair to take his bowl as well. She puts it gently on the coffee table and then gingerly sits down on the arm of the chair. Looking at him. Waiting.

They don’t need to push him, they know that.

“I-” he starts, and then he is trying not to cry, and Andy is also by his side in an instant, and then he finds himself enveloped by the strong, protective arms of two of his favourite people in the world. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel pathetic as he sits there, almost crying about virtually nothing at the ripe age of 33, single and exhausted and unhappy.

“Is it the stress?” Quynh asks, her fingers prying the baseball cap off of Joe’s head to run through his curls instead, scratching soothingly at his scalp, rubbing away the tension that is brewing in his skull.

“Did anyone do anything?” Andy asks when he’s shaken his head no to Quynh’s question, and it’s nice to hear that she still has that dangerous protective streak going on when it comes to protecting Joe’s heart: she will beat anyone’s ass for him, without him even having to ask. “Did _Nicky_ do anything?”

“No, Nicky- no,” Joe is quick to assure her, breathing in deeply through his nose as he tries to keep the overwhelming urge to just bawl his eyes out at bay, because he is entirely too old for that, and even he knows that it is just the stress and the exhaustion and the loneliness that are making him so emotional.

“I just feel-” He thinks of the art pieces in his exhibition, how blue and melancholic they are, how he cannot hide how he feels within his art when sometimes his heart just feels like a gaping space. Saying it aloud is an entirely different matter, though. He had been doing so well, too; he has been single for over three years, enjoying most of it and not caring too terribly much about the rest, and there really shouldn’t be a reason for him to suddenly break down over his solitude like it’s a punishment, and not a perfectly wise decision.

But the last few months his mind has been filled with the images of kind eyes, a beautiful colour of verdigris that Joe just can’t get right, not with colour pencils or pastels or oils, and small smiles, of prominent profiles and broad shoulders and delicious pasta dinners. The words that float through his head when he revises the critiques he receives on his work aren’t those of his critics but those of _Nicky_ , telling him how brave he is to pursue this career, how talented he is, how he loves his use of chiaroscuro in some of his more recent portraits.

His heart aches and yearns and while his mind tells it no, it’s hard to keep it in check.

He just _wants_.

“Maybe you should,” Andy tells him softly, the tenderness in her voice so uncharacteristic for her that he finally topples over the edge and starts crying in earnest, his face buried against the expensive fabric of Quynh’s dress shirt as she cradles his head against herself.

“Maybe you should just let yourself feel, Joe.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, it's been a while. I have rewritten this chapter many, many times. I have so many deleted scenes I could probably fill another fic with them :P But this is it, the final version, and I'm proud of it.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your patience and for reading this fic. I hope all of you are doing well, and don't forget, you're not alone. <3
> 
> Special thanks to Morvith, who keeps me sane, who supports me unconditionally, and who gave me the courage to post this. You are the best. <3

When Joe fails to show his usual amount of excitement and awe when one of the poets makes a near-heroic effort to wrestle the English language into a dactylic hexameter and his addition to the polite applause that follows the performance is nothing more than lacklustre, Nile turns to him with a frown.

“What’s bothering you?” she asks, her voice low as the quiet murmur of conversation picks up in between performances, the many people gathered at the little café that’s hosting the poetry slam taking this moment of respite to talk among each other. This would usually be the time Joe would be dissecting the poetry he’s just heard, but his heart isn’t in it tonight.

“Nothing,” he replies, keeping his gaze steadfastly locked on his mint tea, swirling the leaves around the water with his spoon just to have something to do that wouldn’t be looking at Nile.

“You have been like this since the gallery opening,” Nile says. “Which is something you were looking forward to. Something you were very excited about. What happened? Did that Merrick guy try to steal your art again?”

“No, he wasn’t even there. It’s not- just-” he shrugs, at a loss for words, annoyed with himself. He _has_ been like this since the gallery opening, has become even more morose after his breakdown at Andy and Quỳnh’s, and it’s frustrating. He doesn’t work so well when his mind and heart aren’t cooperating, and it is showing in everything: his mood, his (lack of) art, his exhaustion.

Nile places her hand on top of his and squeezes softly, rhythmically, until Joe finally tears his gaze away from the cup of tea he’s been blearily gazing at to look at her instead.

“Joe.” She hesitates, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. “I don’t want to assume anything, but is this about Nicky?”

“He hasn’t texted me in days,” Joe rushes out.

“He’s giving you space. He texted you to apologise for not making it to the art opening and you never responded. He thinks you are busy, or cross with him.”

Joe breaks their eye contact to look at his tea again, trying to breathe through the clenching of his heart in his chest.

“Why didn’t he come?” he asks, and his voice is small and pathetic to his own ears, and Nile is not the person he should be asking this of, he should have given Nicky a chance to explain, but he’s been too terrified to face the option that maybe Nicky simply isn’t interested in his art. Isn’t interested in him, as an artist, and therefore as a person. 

“Oh Joe,” Nile sighs, her fingers squeezing his hand again and holding tight, now. “His sister went into labour the night before, and his mom surprised him with a plane ticket home. He could get the days off, so he went.” Then, softly, “You could have asked him, he would have told you.”

Joe doesn’t reply as the next poet makes their way onto the stage. He cannot find within himself the peace to enjoy the piece they recite, and the poetry, undoubtedly beautifully composed, falls flat on his deaf ears. When the poet clears the stage, he claps half-heartedly.

“Why did you bring Booker?” he asks her when the applause has died down.

“He was in the area.”

“He likes you.” It’s not meant to sound so accusatory, but it does anyway.

“Yeah,” Nile agrees quietly. “We’re friends.”

“Does Booker agree with that?”

“I don’t know, Joe. Do you agree with being just friends with Nicky?”

“It’s- that’s different.”

“Is it?"

Joe doesn’t reply, and when the next poet climbs upon the stage, Nile quietly rummages through her purse and produces a pen. She grabs one of the napkins from the little stand on the table and starts writing. 

_NICKY?_ , it says in Nile’s blocky handwriting, and underneath it, the napkin has been divided into two sections:  _PROS_ and  _CONS_ . Joe looks on with bemusement as she starts penning down several of the pros with vigour.

_1\. Kind_  
2\. Understanding  
3\. Likes your art  
4\. Supportive

She chews on the back of her pen and then adds a fifth: _Very good at BJs._ Joe nearly chokes on his own spit when he sees it, and he slams his hand down on the napkin to hide the words from view just when the applause starts up, and he glares at her as he awkwardly taps his arm with his other hand to contribute at least somewhat to the clapping.

“What the fuck!” he hisses at her.

Nile grins wickedly at him, obviously very pleased with herself. She shrugs. “I knew his ex before I knew him, I have inside information, Joe.” Joe sputters, and Nile laughs, prying his hand away from her napkin and smoothing it out. “Anything you would like to add?”

“I don’t even know if he’s into me.”

“Do you think I’d be going to these lengths if I wasn’t completely certain he’s into you?” Nile asks incredulously. When Joe just shrugs, she sighs. “Listen, Joe, when I first took him to your art exhibition, he asked me if your partner was there too. Which, I guess, is Nicky-ese for ‘ _please tell me this handsome man is not in a relationship’,_ but, anyway, I explained that you weren’t looking for anyone.”

“That’s a long time ago.”

“I’ve known Nicky for years. Just believe me on this one.”

Joe grabs his tea and takes a careful sip. “I don’t want to get hurt.”

Nile gently squeezes his hand. “I know.” She bumps her shoulder gently against his. “Just call him, yeah?”

–

Joe does call Nicky, when he’s home again. It’s late, but Joe thinks that if he doesn’t call Nicky that night he will definitely be facing another nerve-wrecking sleepless night, and he’s had too many of those the last few days. So he calls Nicky, and he nearly chokes on air when Nicky picks up, his voice low and slightly groggy with sleep.

“Hey Nicky,” he says nervously, walking circles around his coffee table. He nearly trips over a stray sketchpad and he kicks it under the sofa for him to moan about when he needs it next. “Did I wake you?”

“Joe!” Nicky sounds excited, his voice immediately less groggy but still so very, very deep. “I fell asleep on the sofa, which is-” there’s a soft groan from Nicky’s side as Nicky stretches his limbs, and while Joe realistically knows that that’s what is happening, his brain doesn’t quite catch up on that, and next thing he knows his little toe is having a rather painful encounter with the corner of his coffee table and he’s swallowing curses as he breathes through the pain, “-not a good idea when you’re this old.”

“I am pretty sure you’re younger than I am,” Joe manages to say through his gritted teeth, his fingers holding onto his little toe for dear life. He’s not sure if it’s still attached to his body, but then again, if it wasn’t, it certainly wouldn’t be hurting this damn much.

Nicky hums softly. “Am I?”

“Yeah, think so.”

Another hum, pleased this time. Joe blinks through his tears and sits down on the sofa. 

“Why did you call me, Joe?” Nicky asks, and it sounds curious, and it would be so easy to just say, _no particular reason_ or, _I want to apologise for being a dick_ , or _please hold me I’m scared_ , or anything, and Joe prides himself on being good with words, skilled with them even, but right now his tongue feels too big and awkward in his mouth and it’s hard to get out the words.

He’s afraid of rejection, afraid of gently prying open the walls he’s built around his heart only for Nicky to look at his vulnerability and laugh at it, he’s afraid to be hurt. But Nile is right, this is Nicky, and even if he doesn’t want to hang out with Joe anymore ever, he would be kind about it. Nicky is warm hugs and soft corners, not a fucking coffee table with sharp edges.

“I wanted to apologise.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t reply to your message.”

“You had a gallery opening, you were busy.” Nicky sounds genuinely puzzled.

“Yeah- well- I’m-” he groans in frustration, “I’m just sorry. Just accept it, okay?”

“Okay.” The quiet that settles between them creeps underneath Joe’s skin, and Joe doesn’t know how he’s gotten so bad at this. He’s socially inept when it comes to Nicky, and it’s frustrating, because he _wants_ , he just doesn’t know how to convey this. “Are you okay?”

“I just hit my toe on the edge of the coffee table.”

Nicky laughs softly, and then it’s muffled. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.”

“It hurts!”

“I know, please forgive me.”

Joe’s heart is beating rapidly in his chest, and he digs his fingers into the cushion of the sofa. “I actually wanted to ask if you’d come to my exhibition with me. It’ll be up for a few weeks yet, so no hurry but-”

“I would love to,” Nicky cuts him off before he can continue to babble, and Joe laughs softly in relief.

“Yeah?”

“Of course, your art is fantastic. I was sad to miss the opening.”

“Yeah?” Joe’s voice doesn’t crack. It doesn’t.

“Yes. How does this weekend sound?”

–

Joe has checked the clock fourteen times in the past five minutes, he’s walked many, many rounds around his coffee table (his little toe still throbs every time he looks at that particularly nasty corner), and he’s left four WhatsApp voice messages for Nile to listen to when she gets around to it.

He knows it’s silly to be this nervous and this worked up; it’s not like Nicky and he are going on a date, after all.

Because they’re not dating, because Joe hasn’t asked Nicky if he would like to date, and Nicky isn’t the kind of guy to assume. Joe isn’t sure if it’s better that there will be no expectations for today or if it’s worse, because he kind of wants Nicky to pull him into a kiss and take his breath away the moment Joe opens the door.

Of course, just when that particular fantasy crosses Joe’s mind, the buzzer goes. 

Joe jumps over the coffee table and launches himself at the intercom as he buzzes Nicky in, and then it’s another few minutes of freaking out while standing next to the door before he hears a tentative knock.  H e forces himself to wait the count of three breaths before he opens the door  and hopes that the smile on his face is warm and welcoming instead of anxious and terrified.  T he moment he looks at Nicky,  however, most of his anxiety drains away.

Because it’s just Nicky.

Nicky with his sweet little smiles and kind eyes, looking cosy and comfy in his soft hoodie, dressed warm for the chilly early autumn weather. 

“Hey,” Joe says, and Nicky’s smile turns slightly broader and slightly more crooked as Joe steps back and allows him to step inside, his arms outstretched for a hug.

“Hello, Joe,” Nicky says, stepping into his open arms and wrapping his arms around Joe as they hold each other close, and Joe presses his nose against Nicky’s shoulder and breathes in the scent of fabric softener and soap, and the only thing he can think about is that he’s an idiot, an absolute idiot, for getting so into his head about this.

The hug lasts perhaps slightly longer than it should, but Nicky seems content on letting it go on for as long as Joe needs, and even though Joe thinks he would happily hold Nicky in his arms forever, he eventually forces himself to let go.

“How was traffic?”

“Fine,” Nicky replies, closing the door behind him and toeing off his shoes. And then they’re standing in the tiny hallway of Joe’s flat, smiling at each other like idiots, until Joe snaps himself out of it and tugs Nicky along with him in the direction of the kitchen. 

Nicky lingers at Joe’s fridge, which is now decorated with a drawing made by his niece. His sister and her husband had brought her along the day after the gallery  opening , and Saar had greatly enjoyed herself while testing the capacities of Joe’s coloured pencils. She’d drawn him two black swans, and smiled brightly when she’d presented it to him ( _“Look, uncle, male swans can like other male swans, too.”_ Joe had just hugged her tightly and cried a little into her curls, while she had shout-whispered swan facts into his ear). 

“Did you get yourself an apprentice?” Nicky teases lightly. 

Joe fills the electric kettle and flicks it on to boil, laughing as he shakes his head. “I wish. My niece made it for me, my sister and her family flew over for the opening.”

“That must have been nice for you,” Nicky says softly, and Joe nods, fights against the tears that are already starting to build in his eyes and sniffs a little.

“Yeah.”

“Was that pharma guy there? You know, the weaselly one?”

“Oh yes,” Joe replies, pulling mugs out of the cupboard as well as his extensive tea collection for Nicky to choose from, and he recounts the tale of Steven Merrick’s undoubtedly unpleasant experience at the gallery last week while Nicky tries not to laugh too hard as he attempts to decide what flavour he wants.

When his story concludes, they’re sitting on his sofa, both of them still nursing their tea.

“How was your family?” Joe asks, trying to keep the easy flow of conversation going. 

“Good,” Nicky says. “I don’t go back home, to Genoa, very often, but it is always fun when I do. My nephew, Angelo, was very excited about being a big brother, he didn’t want to walk away from the baby’s crib. It’s, ah. I have pictures, if you want to see them?”

Joe does, very much so, and he smiles and laughs along with Nicky as Nicky scrolls through his camera roll, showing pictures of his  family, but especially of his  newborn baby niece and of Angelo, an excited and very happy three-year-old boy, whose big blue eyes are wide with bewilderment and joy in nearly every picture. There’s also one of Angelo riding Nicky’s shoulders, the little boy’s hands fisted in Nicky’s short hair, and Nicky smiling softly up at him. 

When they have finished their tea and Nicky has shown him all the pictures he has taken, they set out to the gallery.  It’s only a few stops on the underground, and this time as they walk side by side it’s Joe who supplies the rainbow umbrella. He’s glad he had the foresight to suggest drinking something at his place before going out; at the very least the huge amount of effort he’d put into trying to get his curls just right hadn’t been immediately ruined by the moisture in the air before Nicky even got to see him.

They press close together on the tube, the warmth of Nicky’s shoulder very distracting where it’s pressed against Joe’s, and it’s impossible for him to look at anything or anyone else when Nicky is so close by, telling him an anecdote about this dog he met at the park a bit ago, his voice low so as not to disturb the other passengers. 

It’s a quick walk from the underground station to the gallery, and Joe opens the door to the building for Nicky with a silly little flourish. and Nicky waits as Joe shakes the rain droplets off the umbrella and closes it. 

“There are a lot of perks to not coming to opening night,” Nicky muses as Joe guides him through the exhibition, pointing out some of his own favourite works. Nicky compliments everything, apologising multiple times for not knowing much about art like he always does, and takes his time to read all the poetry in both their English and French versions, sometimes even comparing the two. He’s very impressed when Joe tells him he always translates everything himself, and the curve of Nicky’s smile is the best thing Joe has ever seen.

“Less busy?” Joe guesses.

“Yes, and I get a private tour guide.”

“A true privilege,” Joe jests, hoping he doesn’t quite sound as giddy as he feels.

“It is.” Nicky smiles at him again, and all Joe can think is _yes, it is indeed_.

It’s stupid, how much more he’s enjoying giving Nicky a private tour around the gallery than he enjoyed the entirety of the opening, but it’s impossible for him to wipe the pleased little smile off his face as Nicky steps closer to one of the drawings, hands neatly folded behind his back, and tries to take in all the details. 

They go to a café nearby when Joe finishes showing Nicky around the gallery. The rain has stopped, although the skies are still overcast, and knowing London, the next downpour is probably not too far off. He grimaces as he sees his own reflection in the café window, his curls frizzy due to the humid weather, but Nicky just gives him one of those little smiles of his when he complains about it. 

“I think you look very nice,” he says, a little bashfully, as he holds the door open for Joe so he can step through. 

Joe’s still feeling the heat of that comment by the time they have ordered their drinks and are sitting down. Nicky is tracing the grains of the wood table with the nail of his index finger, following the crooked lines with precision.

“I’m thinking about moving here,” he says, just when Joe is adding a generous amount of honey to his tea. He forgets he’s pouring it for just a moment, and he’s definitely got more honey in there than he aimed for when he tips the bottle upright again and closes the cap.

“You are?” he tries not to sound too surprised, but he is. Nicky seems to be perfectly content in Manchester; as he said before, he might not like his job so much but he does really like his colleagues, and he’s got his friends and the dogs he always feeds treats to when he’s jogging in the park.

“Yes, I have been thinking about it for a while,” Nicky says, wrapping both his hands around the ceramic of his coffee cup. “There is a non-profit here that I want to work for, and I think it might be time to move. I never lived anywhere else in England than Manchester, but London, it looks nice.” His smile is nervous now, tight around the corners of his mouth and not quite meeting the worry in his eyes.

“But?” Joe prompts, and Nicky takes a moment, taking a sip from his coffee, his gaze back on the table, not meeting Joe’s eyes as he tries to wrangle his thoughts into coherent sentences.

“I moved to England for my ex-boyfriend. We met in university back in Italy, and when we finished our bachelor’s he wanted to go to Manchester for his master’s, and I came with. I was 21, hopelessly in love and very stupid, so it seemed like the logical thing to do.” He meets Joe’s gaze again, and Joe smiles at him encouragingly.

“We broke up four years later, when he wanted to move back to Spain and pursue his music there, and I didn’t want to come along. I actually liked my colleagues a lot, and I loved the little life I had made for myself. We had grown apart over the years, with me liking the quiet nights at home and him still out partying, so when he asked me to come with I told him no. So, we broke up. I did move out of that flat and into the one I live in now, but I just… I’m not unhappy, and there never seemed enough reason for me to move, I suppose?”

“But it’s different now?”

“I think so? It’s silly, really. I don’t like change very much, but here I am, telling you that I left my family and country behind for this guy I wasn’t even together with all that long, and then I’m hesitating over a decision like this. It was just, I suppose, easier? Back then.”

“It’s harder to make these decisions for yourself,” Joe supplies, and Nicky looks at him gratefully.

“It is!” he agrees vehemently. “Even when I know I would be much happier here.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Oh, no,” Nicky says, and the nervousness trickles out of his expression, leaving behind something that is soft and fond and, well, Nicky. “I will be. Nile is here, and so are you.”

Joe can feel the heat warming his cheeks and he’s very glad for his darker complexion as he blushes fiercely, hiding his bashful, pleased smile behind his drink as he brings the glass up to his lips.

After they have finished their drinks, Joe shows Nicky around this part of the city until it is dinnertime, when Joe brings Nicky to his favourite food joint. When they have circled back to Joe’s flat, it takes all of Joe’s willpower and more to not invite Nicky back in. It’s been a long day, and they’re both tired, and while he knows that the plan is for Nicky to drive over to Nile’s and spend the night and tomorrow with her, he wants nothing more than to ask Nicky to come back up, to keep talking. He’s not ready for Nicky to go away yet, not after it has been so long since they last saw each other.

But what should he say? Offer his sofa for Nicky to ruin his back on tonight? Say that he has a bed that easily fits two people if Nicky isn’t opposed to a bit of late night cuddling? Certainly those offers don’t quite fit in with a normal friendship, and letting Nicky in on the fact that Joe isn’t exactly thinking about him entirely platonically anymore is an admission Joe isn’t quite ready for.

So as Nicky goes in for a hug and they hold each other tight and long on the curb in front of Joe’s flat building, he blurts out, “Is it okay if I draw you, next time?” instead.

Nicky laughs when he pulls back, soft and surprised and bashful, and even under the bleak lighting of the street lamps his cheeks look rosy.

“Draw me? Why would you want that?”

 _Because you’re beautiful,_ Joe doesn’t say. Instead, he smiles and pulls Nicky into another, quicker hug. “Because you’re special to me.”

“Okay,” Nicky agrees, his voice a little off, but his smile is still bright and happy when they pull back and let each other go. Joe stays standing outside in the drizzle as he watches the green Panda drive away, a silly smile on his face and a light feeling in his chest.

–

Andy infiltrates his quiet Thursday night with all the carefulness of a  bull in a china shop, kicking his door open just when Joe is about to transfer a spoonful of soup from  his bowl to his mouth. He ends up startling so hard that he spills the soup on himself instead, and as he yelps at the scorching heat that’s currently scalding his everything, Andy  has the decency to look at least vaguely apologetic.

“That, uh. Yeah. I actually didn’t want you to hurt yourself. Why aren’t you blaring that awful music? Usually you’re blaring music when I come over. You usually never hear me come in,” Andy complains, kicking the door shut behind herself. She drops the overflowing, almost threadbare tote bag she’s got with her onto the coffee table right in front of Joe. It lands on the wood with a dull thump and the distinct cracking of breaking plastic.

Joe glares at her.

“I apologised,” Andy defends.

“You didn’t!” 

“Oh, well. Could have sworn I did,” Andy says, shrugging, and still decidedly not apologising. “Do you want a paper towel?”

Joe grumbles, getting up off the sofa and going to deposit his mostly empty soup bowl in the sink. He pulls his t-shirt over his head, very glad that it’s black, and is still grumbling as he goes into his bedroom to change.

When he emerges again,  Andy has displayed the contents of her tote bag in a very unorganised fashion, with a lopsided stack of DVDs on one side of the coffee table and a small mountain of take-out containers piled haphazardly in the middle. 

“I did have dinner, you know,” he says as he sits beside her again, and Andy grins at him, upturning the throw pillows of his sofa in search of the TV remote. She eventually finds it between the cushions, where it’s probably been stuck for- well. For a while. Joe’s had to go up to the TV to change channels for a few weeks now. Andy arches her eyebrow at his baffled look, and he quickly looks away before she can start cackling about it.

It’s not like she needs anything else to tease him for, after all.

“I promise that what I brought is better,” she says as she turns on the TV.

Joe checks the contents of the containers and she’s definitely right, it’s absolutely better  than his canned soup . He removes the lid from one and sighs happily when the delicious smell of Vietnamese food fills his nostrils.

“Why are you here, though?”

“Quỳnh had a thing.”

“A thing?”

“Yes, you know.” Andy makes a vague, hard-to-interpret and slightly aggressive gesture. “A thing. For the fashion show that’s coming up.”

“Do you mean a rehearsal?”

Andy snaps her fingers like he’s said something especially brilliant. “Yes,  that thing.” She feeds one of the DVDs into his underused PS4 and Joe groans when he realises she’s brought her entire collection of the L Word with her.

“You don’t even like this series!”

“I might not, but there are people who do, and I figured you probably have something to mope about, so we wouldn’t be doing much watching anyway, you know?” Andy says as she goes to get plates. She’s scooping food onto both their plates with the noise of two actresses having very loud fake sex in the background, her face completely impassive as she does so.

Joe just groans. He really would have liked a quiet evening to himself, so he could contemplate how he is going to approach the illustration commission he accepted a few days ago, and maybe text Nicky a little and swoon at his profile picture for a completely acceptable amount of time. He had plans, and Andy and her TV show don’t quite fit in there.

“I don’t have anything to mope about,” he mopes as he accepts his plate from her and takes his first bite, moaning a little at how good the food is.

“No?” Andy prompts, her eyebrows raised. “Not even something Nicky-related?”

Joe sighs. Of course, that is the real reason why Andy is here. Sure, Quỳnh probably does really have a rehearsal for her fashion show, and Andy is notoriously bad at entertaining herself, so this isn’t the first time she’s come barging in like this, but the amount of food she’s brought and the TV show are definitely pointedly chosen. She’s here to either comfort him, if he’s still struggling with himself, or harass him until he confesses his undying love for Nicky and stops being such a wuss about things.

“May I at least eat my dinner first?” he whines.

Andy looks at him, sparkles of mischief and fondness in her pale eyes. “Yes. And then you’ll tell me all about it, lover boy.”

So yes, that’s how he ends up spending that particular Thursday evening curled up against Andy’s side as she runs her fingers through his curls, listening patiently while Joe tells her about the day he spent with Nicky.

–

T he beginning of November brings Nicky to London, which means that November is now Joe’s new favourite month. He completely forgoes their offers to help him move, and not even Joe’s complaints about it being bad friend etiquette to not help your friend move after he has helped you move can convince him otherwise. He does enlist Nile to help him assemble some furniture,  but Joe has to settle for staring wistfully at  the pictures  she sends in the WhatsApp group chat as Ravioli tests out all the empty cardboard boxes.

When Nicky is all settled in a few days later, he invites Joe to come over for dinner, and Joe promptly clears his schedule for the entire afternoon and evening. While he agrees to come over at 6, he’s nearly bursting out of his skin with excitement by the time 3:30 rolls around, and he decides that Nicky probably won’t mind if Joe shows up a couple hours early.

Nicky’s new  is only a couple bus stops or a twenty-ish minute walk away,  so it’s hardly 4pm by the time Joe walks up the stairs to Nicky’s floor, feeling both anxious and very excited as he presses the buzzer.

Nicky looks surprised when he opens the door for him, but the surprise quickly morphs into delight as he opens his arms for Joe to step into, and then they’re hugging, and Nicky’s hugs really are the best hugs. Joe burrows his nose into the crook where Nicky’s neck meets his shoulder. He smells like detergent and citrus, fresh and tangy.

“You’re early,” Nicky says as they let go of each other, Nicky stepping to the side so Joe can enter.

“Yes, I just- I couldn’t wait,” Joe admits lamely, his heart fluttering as Nicky’s smile broadens at the confession.

“Dinner isn’t ready yet.”

“That’s fine. You had promised me that I could draw you, last time. Remember? I think you cooking is excellent practice for me.”

“If you’re sure,” Nicky says, sounding doubtful.

“I am.”

He toes off his shoes and shrugs off his leather jacket, taking his backpack with him into the flat. Nicky shows him around with little fanfare, his voice dry as he presents the living room with a half-hearted flourish. It looks mostly the same as his flat in Manchester, although he’s got a new sofa and one of the walls is a nice light mint green, a colour Nile apparently chose.

They find Ravioli in Nicky’s bedroom, curled up amidst the pillows, and when Nicky catches Joe’s hesitance, he  chuckles .

“He doesn’t mind being woken up for pets, you know,” he says, and Joe makes a happy noise as he sits down on Nicky’s bed and gently lets his fingers sink into Ravioli’s fluffy fur. The cat makes an inquisitive noise as it opens its eyes, and Joe finds himself falling in love again as a loud purr erupts from the cat’s tiny frame.

He takes Ravioli with him for the remainder of the tour, tucked neatly into his arms and purring away happily.

He sets him down onto the sofa when they have circled back to the living room, and Joe pulls up a chair to sit at the kitchen island while Nicky goes and fusses around in the kitchen, putting the electric kettle to boil and pulling fresh mint out of the fridge for Joe.

“I actually have a gift for you,” Joe says as he digs through his backpack, producing the frame he’d wrapped earlier that day. He also pulls out his sketchbook and pencils, because he truly does intend to finally draw Nicky.

“Oh?” Nicky hums, his back still turned to Joe as he puts the mint into a glass and fills it up with boiling water. He puts the tea on the island as well as a jar of organic honey, and then stares at the wrapped gift with big eyes. “Why? It’s not my birthday.”

“It’s, like. A house-warming gift? Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve missed multiple of your birthdays by now. Better give you something to smooth that over, you know?”

Nicky frowns as he dries his hands on a tea towel. “I didn’t get you anything when you moved.”

“You helped me move.”

“That’s not a gift,” Nicky protests.

Joe laughs, giving the gift another push in Nicky’s direction. “Just open it.”

Nicky looks at the gift for a few more seconds before he reaches out and takes it, turning it around in his hands so he can carefully peel at the adhesive tape that’s keeping the wrapping paper together. Joe feels himself grow slightly impatient as Nicky picks at the tape with blunt fingernails, but he knows how particular people can be about unwrapping proceedings, and while he personally finds it terribly hard to find the patience to do anything else than rip into it, he also doesn’t want Nicky to feel rushed.

Plus, it’s endearing to see him being so careful with this. It’s very Nicky.

Nicky’s eyes become even wider when he sees the gift in its unwrapped glory. “Joe,” he gasps. “You shouldn’t have.”

Joe smiles and shrugs. “It’s not that good.”

Nicky looks at him then, eyebrows furrowed unhappily. “Don’t say that. It’s amazing. It looks- it looks like a photograph.”

He puts the wrapping paper down carefully and his fingers twitch like he wants to touch the glass of the frame, but he doesn’t, careful not to leave any smudges on it.

“So you like it?” Joe says, grinning.

“I love it, Joe. it’s beautiful.” Nicky puts the drawing down then. It’s Ravioli, drawn in colour pencils, and Nicky looks at it like it’s the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen, and Joe can’t help but feel proud. Nicky walks around the island to hug him again, pressing his lips against Joe’s cheek in thanks, and Joe laughs as he holds Nicky close. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Nicky gravitates back toward the other side of the kitchen island, making coffee for himself and then pulling out some fresh produce to start working on dinner, his gaze flicking over to the drawing every now and again like he’s afraid it might disappear if he doesn’t check up on it.

Joe truly is early, but he doesn’t regret his decision. It seems like Nicky doesn’t particularly mind his company, either. Until he catches sight of Joe’s sketchbook, that is.

“You aren’t going to draw me now, are you?” Nicky asks, looking slightly worried as he starts cracking walnuts, which he does expertly with both hands, somehow. It’s incredibly distracting, and Joe has to tear his eyes away from those strong fingers to look at Nicky’s face instead.

“I was planning to.”

“I’m not, I don’t think-”

“You look great, Nicky.”

Nicky gives him a baffled look, clearly disbelieving him, which is fair. Nicky hasn’t put much effort into his appearance, perhaps because Joe showed up early or perhaps because he wasn’t planning to in the first place, but he still looks perfect to Joe. His hoodie is a faded green that compliments his eyes, tight around his shoulders and loose around his narrow waist, and his jeans are faded with age but they absolutely do Nicky’s butt justice. 

And, well. Nicky’s face is always handsome, with his startling eyes and beautiful profile and simple haircut.

Nicky really does look great. Impossibly so, even, Joe is happy to admit.

Something in Joe’s expression must convey how much  he means it, because Nicky grabs another couple of walnut s  with a huff and cracks them between his palms, a faint blush tinting his cheeks.

Joe opens his sketchbook, starting with a study of Nicky’s strong hands, of his profile. Of the line of his shoulders in that hoodie. The radio is on softly as background noise, and they talk easily with each other , about work and their friends and Nicky’s new neighbourhood . When Nicky starts working on the pasta dough he’d already prepared earlier, rolling it out and shaping it,  his sleeves rolled up to show off his toned lower arms as he works, Joe  starts feeling slightly too hot. He’s started on a sketch of Nicky’s face, more detailed than what he’s been doing so far, and his heart is beating in his throat.

Maybe he should-

It’s time, isn’t it? He’s really been postponing this for long enough.

So he takes a sip of his second cup of mint tea, and steels himself.

“I haven’t been in a relationship in years,” Joe says, his eyes fixed on the sketched version of Nicky’s face. He traces the sharpness of his jawline with the tip of his pencil, thickening the graphite to make the line bolder and more prominent. His nose gets the same treatment as he lovingly traces the strong curve, and then he goes back to thicken his eyelashes. 

Nicky makes a noise, pausing his  rollin g to take a sip from his coffee. He doesn’t go back to the  dough , and Joe knows that if he were to look up, Nicky’s attentive gaze would be fixed on him. So he doesn’t  look . Instead, he lightly shades Nicky’s irises, careful to keep them light and clear. He should have brought his colour pencils; perhaps with Nicky in front of him, their colour would not be quite so elusive to get right.

“My last boyfriend was a bit of an ass,” he starts as he works on Nicky’s hair, drawing each individual strand with confident flicks of his wrist. “I suppose my last few boyfriends were all asses, in their own way. Which makes me wonder, you know, maybe it’s me who is the problem?” The chuckle that forces its way past his lips sounds pathetic to his own ears. 

“What makes you think that?”

“I’m clingy, I’m high maintenance. I need praise, and affirmation, and I’m a fierce sleep cuddler.” Joe starts working on Nicky’s eyebrows instead, not quite trusting himself with the delicate work of Nicky’s hair as he talks. “I don’t like throwing stuff away, and I think dishwasher etiquette is bullshit.” He grabs the eraser to undo a particularly harsh line. “I’m opinionated, stubborn, embarrassing in public.” He kneads the eraser between his fingers. It’s always better to take out his frustrations on the gum rather than his pencils; he likes this pencil, he doesn’t want to accidentally snap it. “Too loud, in bed and outside it. I tend to get distracted when I’m cooking, or when I’m bored, and no one quite believes me when I tell them I can draw and hold a conversation at the same time. I’m-”

“Joe,” Nicky interrupts quietly, and Joe looks up then, thumb digging harshly into his kneaded eraser. He presses his lips firmly together to keep the _see, you don’t like it when I talk either_ from slipping past his lips. It’s something he would regret saying. Nicky has never interrupted him before, Nicky has always, _always_ listened to him.

Now, too, his expression is kind, although there is sadness in his eyes. “They’re wrong,” Nicky states, easily, bluntly, matter-of-factly.

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them.”

Joe shakes his head, turning his attention back to his sketch. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice Nicky walking around the island until he’s right next to him. Maybe that’s why he jumps when Nicky’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, his thumb rubbing soothing circles against the fabric of his sweatshirt. 

“You are the kindest man I know,” Nicky starts, his voice soft and gentle, smoothed by the lilting of his accent. “You are incredibly talented, both with your art and your words. You are clever, sweet and thoughtful. You like to hold onto all of your trinkets because you want to be reminded of the memories you have tied them to in your mind, and anyone who says you do not listen is an idiot.”

Joe looks up at him, his cheeks hot, his heart hammering in his chest. “Nicky, you don’t have to say these things.”

“Maybe not,” Nicky agrees. “But what if I want to? I can’t just stand there and listen to you putting yourself down. You are an amazing person, Joe. You make everyone always feel at ease, you are funny, you give the best hugs. You are also incredibly handsome.”

“Yeah?” Joe asks. His gaze meets Nicky’s, and those clear eyes aren’t letting him go.

“Yes.”

Joe gently  takes Nicky’s hand from his shoulder. He looks at Nicky’s fingers, strong and thick but soft, and then he looks up again. Breathing is hard as anxiety takes hold of him, but the words that Nicky has just said don’t leave too much to the imagination. 

“I would like to date you,” Joe whispers, holding tightly onto Nicky’s hand.

Nicky smiles. Joe loves Nicky’s smile. The gentle quirk of those full lips, barely perceptible unless you’re really looking. Joe likes to look at Nicky. It’s his favourite thing. He can’t imagine not wanting to look at Nicky. 

“I would like to date you, too.”

“I’m probably really bad at it,” Joe cautions him.

Nicky shrugs. “So am I. I haven’t dated anyone in years either. But we can be bad at it together, yes?”

Joe stops fighting the grin that’s pulling at the corners of his mouth, and then he’s pressing Nicky’s knuckles to his lips and kissing them, chuckling against the skin in such a silly, silly way, but his chest feels light and giddy, and he’s forgotten, completely forgotten  what it felt like to be allowed to like, and touch, and love, and he’s soaring just a little bit now he’s allowed. Now he knows that this is mutual. 

Nicky mumbles something, and Joe looks up at him again. “What was that?” he mumbles against the skin of Nicky’s hand. Both their hands are becoming clammy where they  a re holding the other, but Joe doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t think he ever wants to let go.

“You are beautiful,” Nicky repeats.

Joe surges up, out of his chair, and against Nicky, still holding tightly onto his hand as he stands in front of him, and then moves closer, swallowing past both the nerves and butterflies that are  congealing in his throat as he leans in and presses their lips together.

Nicky squeezes his hand as they kiss, sweet and reassuring.

_It’s okay. I have you._


End file.
